The consolidation or integration of mechanical, electrical and/or optical components into integral devices has created enormous demands on material processing. Furthermore, it is desirable to place greater numbers of integrated devices in the same volumes. To form these integrated structures, there is considerable interest in the application of specific compositions with selected properties onto substrates. In order to form optical devices with high quality optical materials, the coatings or layers of material generally are highly uniform.
Presently used optical communication light wavelengths are from 1.3 to 1.6 microns. Optical waveguides generally have dimensions many times the wavelength. Thus, optical structures can have dimensions from a few microns to about 100 microns depending on optical mode requirements and other factors.
An explosion of communication and information technologies including internet based systems has motivated a world wide effort to implement optical communication networks to take advantage of a large bandwidth available with optical communication. The capacity of optical fiber technology can be expanded further with implementation of Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing technology. With increasing demands, more channels are needed to fulfill the system functions. The production of increasingly complex optical components requires the deposition of high quality optical materials with increasingly complex structures and/or compositions. Furthermore, the optical materials must be fashioned into specific devices.
Basic characteristics of optical materials include surface quality, uniformity and optical quality. Optical quality refers to small enough absorption and scattering loss to achieve desired levels of transmission. Optical quality also includes the uniformity of optical properties, such as index-of-refraction, and bi-refringence properties. In addition, optical quality is affected by interface quality, such as the interface between the core layers and cladding layers. For silica (SiO2) and several other materials preferred forms for optical transmission are a glass, while for some other materials single crystal forms may have the highest quality optical transmission.
Several approaches have been used and/or suggested for the deposition of the optical materials. These approaches include, for example, flame hydrolysis deposition, chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition, sol-gel chemical deposition and ion implantation. Flame hydrolysis and forms of chemical vapor deposition have been successful in the production of glass fibers for use as fiber optic elements. Flame hydrolysis deposition involves the use of a hydrogen-oxygen flame to react gaseous precursors to form particles of the optical material as a coating on the surface of the substrate. Subsequent heat treatment of the coating can result in the formation of a uniform optical material, which generally is a glass material.
The introduction of different elements, either dopants or stoichiometric components, into desired compositions can be difficult. In particular, blending elements to form complex compositions for optical materials can be challenging. Further challenges can result if particular complex compositions are to be located at particular locations within a structure.
Approaches have been developed for the production of highly uniform submicron and nanoscale particles by laser pyrolysis. Highly uniform particles are desirable for the fabrication of a variety of devices including, for example, batteries, polishing compositions, catalysts, and phosphors for optical displays. Laser pyrolysis involves an intense light beam that drives the chemical reaction of a reactant stream to form highly uniform particles following the rapid quench of the stream after leaving the laser beam. Laser pyrolysis has the advantage that a variety of different elements can be incorporated into the particle compositions.